UPDATE: On Sunday a spokesperson from Banana Republic provided Glamour with an updated statement.

"This week, one of our store managers questioned an African American employee’s braided hair style. Our team began an immediate investigation, and the manager involved was promptly removed from the store. Today we concluded the investigation and can confirm that the manager has been terminated from the company. Banana Republic has zero tolerance for discrimination. This situation was completely unacceptable, counter to our policies, and in no way reflects our company’s beliefs and values."

Banana Republic is being accused of "blatant racism" by a female employee who says she was discriminated against because she chose to wear box braids to work, a choice labeled "too urban" by her manager.

In a Facebook post that's been live for less than two days and has been shared over 34,000 times, Destiny Tompkins, a 19-year-old black woman, details how she was pulled aside by her (white, female) district manager while on her shift at the Banana Republic inside New York's Westchester Mall and sent to another (white, male) manager who she says cited a dress code issue.

"I thought there was something wrong with my outfit, but he sat me down and questioned my hair instead," Tompkins wrote. "He told me that my braids were not Banana Republic appropriate and that they were too 'urban' and 'unkempt' for their image."

In the post she details how the manager said he couldn't schedule more shifts for Tompkins if she didn't take her braids out, and says he offered "shea butter" as an alternate solution when she explained her braids were a protective style, as her hair tends to become brittle in cold weather.

Tompkins says she was so "uncomfortable" and "overwhelmed" that she chose not to finish her shift, and went home instead. In an email to Glamour, she said this was the first time she'd worn braids to this current job, and previous employers never had a problem with it.

Banana Republic didn't reply to requests for comment about its formal dress code policy—Tompkins said she was expected to carry herself "professionally" as far as her clothing choices went, but spokesperson Sheikina Liverpool provided the following statement to Glamour:

"As a company, we have zero tolerance for discrimination. We take this matter very seriously, and we are actively conducting an investigation. We are committed to upholding an inclusive environment where our customers and our employees feel respected."

The incident isn't the first time a black woman says she was penalized at work for her appearance: A federal appeals court ruled in September 2016 that it wasn't racial discrimination when an Alabama-based insurance claims processing company fired a black employee for wearing her hair in dreadlocks, and an experienced employee at New York's prestigious St. Regis hotel claims she was let go in 2013 after being told she wasn’t a “good fit” with the brand's “culture," a decision she's attributed to her locs. Since she hadn't yet reached a 60-day probationary period of employment, she had no recourse, a New York Hotel Workers Union rep told BuzzFeed News.

And while there's been some progress made on the legal front—a black waitress who was fired from a Baltimore Hooters in 2013 because she was told the blond streaks in her hair looked "unnatural" was awarded $250,000 by a Maryland arbitrator, and the Pentagon's stringent policy on how female members of the military must wear their hair was overturned in 2014—it's not enough if women like Destiny Tompkins have to be pulled aside by superiors for no other reason than because they look a certain way.

Advertisement

The looming question: How can companies get away with calling out workers' physical attributes, especially those are that are clear signposts of race?

They can't, at least not in this case, says one expert. New York–based employment attorney Alex Granovsky, of Granovsky & Sundaresh PLLC, told Glamour that some legal issues surrounding dress code fall under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal law that prohibits employers from discriminating against workers on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, and religion.

"Her hair has nothing to do with her job," said Granovsky, who isn't affiliated with Tompkins or Banana Republic. "It doesn't convey anything inappropriate. The word urban is barely code for 'You look too black'"—a point that wasn't lost on Tompkins.

"There’s no reason why a white person should feel allowed to tell me that I can’t wear my hair the way that I want bc it’s too black for their store image," she wrote on Facebook.

The reality is, even if retailers do enforce certain restrictions pertaining to "acceptable" hairstyles—no matter how vague the language—racial undercurrents will persist since definitions of "professional" and "neat" are fully subjective. Plus, it's misguided for companies to assume traditionally black hairstyles are always purely aesthetic: Many that come under fire in the workplace—box braids, dreadlocks, cornrows, twists—are deeply connected to hair texture, a cultural indicator of race.

"Black women have been criticized and discriminated against because of the way we choose to protect and maintain our natural hair for generations," Tompkins told Glamour. "A majority of black people tend to have much kinkier, curlier texture…. The sun helps our curls flourish in the summer and keeps our hair moisturized, which is necessary to keep it healthy. The cold weather tends to make our hair brittle and cause breakage and loss of hair, which is why we style our hair with braids."

"I don't think anyone's natural hair should ever be seen as 'unkempt,'" she said. "It's discriminatory to tell anyone the hair they were born with looks 'unprofessional' [and to tell] people who use protective styles like braids to maintain the health of their hair that it's too 'urban' for their store brand. It's incredibly racist."

As of Friday, October 6, Tompkins said she's still employed by Banana Republic and "waiting to hear how the situation will be handled" before resigning. She also said she's talked to a few attorneys about her options.